Quelle est le date de ton anniversaire?

Tomorrow!

Yes dear readers tomorrow is my birthday - Hip Hip Hooray!

Below are some pictures of the delicious and pretty cakes my lovely Grandmother baked for me (and my sister, as it is her birthday too).






There was another cake with a tiny sugar bluebird on it but it mysteriously disappeared, naming no names (DADDY!).

Have a good day dearies!

Love etc
x

Oh Me, Oh My.

These pictures are utterly lovely. So dreamy and sweet.
I wish I looked like the girls she draws.
Prints by Audrey Malo available from shop 'Cendrille' on Etsy (for only $5!) she also has a Flickr page here.

I also like this one and this one but my silly computer wouldn't let me put them up here. Silly.

Au revoir
x

I Am But...

Today I am cutting my fringe and deliberating my long hair
and feeling alternately happy and sad
and thinking of Christmas but wishing it wasn't so soon
and wanting things but not right now
and questioning myself but finding no answers
and wishing I was someone else but not sure who I would rather be
and wondering about the future but confused about the present
and not knowing how the day passes so slow yet I can never get everything done
and singing along but wishing it was someone elses voice other than my own that I heard
and yearning but for what I do not know
and desperate to be certain
and longing to be confident
and wondering 'is this it?'


Image from Jostein W on Flickr

How To.

Image from Isaahunny flikr

I would like to apologise for my lack of posting this week. I fully intended to post every day this week to make up for my possible non-blogging next week however, what with my 50minute train journey home taking two hours on Tuesday (all of which I had to stand, grrr), finding out my job ends tomorrow so looking for a new one, contacting recruitment agencies and trying to organise references and me FALLING OVER at the train station yesterday morning (it was an impressive full dive to the ground), I have been a leeettle busy this week.

Here are a few things which I have come across this week which I would like to share with you.

How to be happy

Step 1:Smile. Smile even if life isn’t good,

smile because life can be good. Smile because

of the possibilities and everything that’s going to be.

Step 2:Find a way to destroy whatever (not whoever)

destroys you. No matter how long it takes.

No matter how hard it is. Make it go away.

Step 3:Get yourself a passion.

Something (not someone), a hobby you can live for.

Step 4:Love yourself. I know it’s hard,

but you have to find a way, or you will never

know how good life can be.

Step 5:Stop thinking. What others think is not relevant,

if it makes you unhappy. Enjoy.

Concentrate on what you’re doing.

Decide by feeling: If you feel like something’s

the right thing to do, just do it.

redlips&icecream

How to get the perfect messy-chic parisienne bun here.

Found via a new fave blog called A Cup of Jo.

How Do I Love Thee?

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and Ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Hope to be on here again soon, until then - Toodlepip!

x

Happy Monday!

How cute are these items of Bunny Jewellery?

Both are available from Rabidfox at Etsy

(the Octopus ring is ace too)

.

.

I love Neil Gaiman (and the books he writes too obv).

Image via RedLipsandIceCream

This picture is really good.

Image via RedLipsandIceCream

This website makes me giggle, a lot.

This post in particular.

Hope you had a super weekend.

x

THE DARKLING THRUSH
by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

LEANT upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seem'd to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seem'd fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

.

.

Good week thus far I hope!

Love

x

Image via here and via here

Fruit Market.

I went to the fruit market

And took lots of pictures

It was fun.

Have a nice day, back tomorrow with Poetry Thursday!

x

Happy Monday.

This made me laugh:

Beartato: Last Autumn Leaf

This necklace is pretty and from Trophies on Etsy:

This is a good picture:

Image originally from Jill Willcott on Flikr

I like cake:

Image originally from Cinammon on Flikr.

Image originally from Little Doodles on Flikr.

Happy Monday!

Hope you had a gooood weekend

x

I Love...

... this movie.

I by chance stumbled across one of the songs featured in the movie on Youtube this morning and have subsequently spent all day listening to the brilliant soundtrack, listing as follows:

1. A Story Of Boy Meets Girl - 500 Days Of Summer

2. Us (Remastered) - Regina Spektor

3. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths*

4. Bad Kids - The Black Lip

5. Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want - The Smiths

6. There Goes The Fear - Doves

7. You Make My Dreams - Hall & Oates

8. Sweet Disposition - The Temper Trap

9. Quelqu’un M’a Dit - Carla Bruni

10. Mushaboom - Feist

11. Hero - Regina Spektor

12. Bookends - Simon And Garfunkel

13. Vagabond - Wolfmother

14. She’s Got You High - Mumm-ra

15. Here Comes Your Man - Meaghan Smith

16. Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want - She & Him

(500) Days of Summer is super duper and I love it and if you havn't seen it I Command you to watch it (cue evil laugh) for the following reasons:

1. Zooey Deschanel is ridiculously pretty,
2. and her clothes are fab (total Girl Crush),
3. Joseph-Gordon Levitt is a dish,
4. the music is awesome,
5. and the storyline excellent,
6. j'adore!
7. Because what I say goes (just kidding obv!)**

So yeah, pretty ace all round.

Well, have a good weekend everyone, I'm going to sleep tomorrow and see New Moon on Sunday and see you Monday!

x

* Cue bad impression of Smiths from me "if a double decker buuus crashes into us...to die by your side is such a heavenly way to dieeee"

** As you can see, I quite like lists.

Images via here and here and here and here

November!

November!

by Thomas Hood

No sun--no moon!

No morn--no noon!

No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--

No sky--no earthly view--

No distance looking blue--

No road--no street--no "t'other side this way"--

No end to any Row--

No indications where the Crescents go--

No top to any steeple--

No recognitions of familiar people--

No courtesies for showing 'em--

No knowing 'em!

No traveling at all--no locomotion--

No inkling of the way--no notion--

"No go" by land or ocean--

No mail--no post--

No news from any foreign coast--

No Park, no Ring, no afternoon gentility--

No company--no nobility--

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,

No comfortable feel in any member--

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds--

November!

Hope you enjoy!

x

Images via Wili Hybrid on Flikr via the blue hour via AudreyHepburn Complex

Another Wednesday marks the middle of another week. I was supposed to be at this job for one month (beginning of September until the end) but I have now been here for 11 weeks. However, the end of the project is in sight and I am now once again staring down the black hole of unemployment.

I got the offer of an interview next week.

Part of me thinks I should feel happy to be offered anything in the current economic climate, but the other part of me, my gut instinct if you will, says this isn't really what I'm looking for and that I should hold out for something better.

Also that the first interview is in a Holiday Inn rather than their offices does seem a leeeetle weird, right? Like I should be delivering a brown paper package or drinking champagne (maybe only fizzy white wine at a Holiday Inn come to think of it) with a wealthy businessman!

Just feels wrong to turn down an interview is all.

I'm sure you will be hearing a lot more about how things progress on here in the coming weeks.

And now onto something completely different

this picture totally captured my heart. So sweet and clever I love it.

Have a good afternoon and evening dear readers.

Back tomorrow with Poetry Thursday.

x

Images via Red Lips & Ice Cream and Marnie Pill on Flickr respectively.

Rain Rain Go Away?

Picture this, if you will.

I wake up to my radio alarm which is playing a pop song much to cheery for 6:30am.

It is dark and raining.

It does not get light before I leave the house as it normally does but continues to stay the gloomy darkness of late twilight despite the earliness of the hour. The rain patters slowly but firmly on the windows as I get ready to leave the house. I pull on my knee high flat boots (no loafers today of course), my wintery coat and a very stripy umbrella.

As I step out of my front door, across the porch and half way down the drive so begins a downpouring of torrential proportions. End Of The World type rain with drops so big they hurt when they hit your skin and so heavy cars have to slow almost to a halt as the drivers can't see out of their windscreens. The umbrella whips around in the wind yet keeps my face and most of my hair dry but the rain is now coming down at a 45 degree angle, soaking the few inches of my skirt which peep below my coat and my tights above my boots so they cling to my legs (boots which it turns out do not stand up to puddles the size of ponds oddly enough) .

I swear to myself repeatedly as I walk along (as though this mantra of curses will somehow keep me dry) and fear I am unfortunately overheard by my nextdoor neighbour as he cycles slowly by in a very luminous jacket.

The bus seems to take an age to arrive and by the time it does the elements of me exposed to the weather are thoroughly soaked. I miss my normal train as the traffic is so bad and have to get a later one which is not direct to London so adds another 15 minutes to my journey. I sit down next to the window, peel off my damp layers, lay out my dripping umbrella under my seat, put on my Mp3 player and close my eyes. I manage to doze for most of the journey but wake up about 10 minutes from London at which point an Elbow song from their album Seldom Seen Kid starts to play and just at that moment, the sun emerges from behind the heavy charcoal grey clouds, and reveals to me that behind this curtain of dark there are huge white clouds and bright blue skies. All this I see only for a moment before the curtain is back, the sun disappears and spots of rain reappear, running down in tracks on the window.

Like a character in some corny movie I feel any annoyance at the dreadful weather, the traffic, the still being rather damp and the being later into work than I like, slip quietly away.

Such big weather and such natural beauty made me feel quite small in a way I rather like and Elbow's song made me breathe a breath of calm as it always does. As soon as I step off the train, the hustle and bustle shake me from my pleasing reverie but I am still left with a small bright bubble of happiness inside.

Funny what music can do.

Funny what the beauty of nature can do.

Just Say...

OK,

Good things which have happened to me today:

+ Got a seat on the train this morning

+ Got a free Gingerbread Latte from Starbucks

+ Ate a yummy cheese, ham and tomato croissant from Pret a Manger

+ Finally got round to ordering a new camera off Ebuyer

+ My plum coloured corduroy trousers (that's right, plum corduroy) from Uniqlo have been dispatched

+ I got paid

+ Was sold some delicious carrot cake by a man dressed as Robin Hood

+ Have a really good weekend planned involving shopping with my sister, lunch with one of my dearest friends and new episode of Doctor Who on Sunday evening.

Bad things that have happened to me today:

- Supposed to be going to something this evening which I don't want to but am too much of a wimp to get out of.

It seems ridiculous to me that all the positives can be cancelled out by One Negative (which I should have said no too when it first came up but didn't because I was a WIMP. Do you see a pattern emerging here?)

Silly silly silly silly me.

I make myself so mad sometimes because I can't say no to people. I just care too much what they think of me, even if I don't like them.

Does this A) make me a good person because I don't want to create disputes or offend others?

Or

Does this B) make me an idiot for not thinking about what I want?

Will I ever learn? Is this something that comes with age?

I jolly well hope so.

I shall let you know how it goes.

Have a stupendous weekend readers of mine.

x

Picture via WeHeartIt

~Read Me~

LIFE IS BUT A DREAM
by: Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

BOAT, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July--

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear--

Long has paled that sunny sky;
Echoes fade and memories die;
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die;

Ever drifting down the stream--
Lingering in the golden gleam--
Life, what is it but a dream?

For you, my dears.

Hope you are having a nice week.

x

You do the Maths

Don't you just love it when things you love come together to make an object for uber adoration? For example:

David Tennant + Hamlet = David Tennant playing Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company

Sausages + Yorkshire Puddings = Toad in the Hole

Leggings + The colour plum = these beauties from American Apparel

As such...

Love of gardening + Love of all things minature + Love of glassware = these adorable Terrariums from TortoiseLovesDonkey on Etsy.

I think these are so lovely and am definitely putting them on my Christmas list!

Have a good day!

x

p.s. I originally came across the Terrariums on a great blog called Ponder and Stitch